


How To Start A Sentence

by fictorium



Category: West Wing
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-12
Updated: 2011-01-12
Packaged: 2017-10-14 21:47:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/153796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictorium/pseuds/fictorium





	How To Start A Sentence

  
It's raining when he presents himself at Petersburg, and it's the perfect excuse to make Andy stay in the car. He kisses her goodbye and doesn't look in back, where the carseats are empty at his request. Thinking what Andy's mom will be telling his children right now is the least of his worries.

Toby doesn't look back once on the short walk to the security station, because he already knows what he'll see; he's been breaking Andy's heart for too many years not to. Alana is waiting, stomping around in her heels while an umbrella offers minimal protection from the rain. Toby lets it run down his head, drip into the collar of his coat, because soon there'll be someone to tell him when he's allowed outdoors, and he has to enjoy even this while he can.

Everyone, at least the few friends who are still speaking to him, likes to tell reassuring stories about cigars being smuggled in and how it's the perfect opportunity to write those memoirs. They avoid the blunter facts of his criminal record, of how much Huck and Molly will grow between probably infrequent visits. Federal prison isn't Attica, but it's still prison, he wants to tell these well-meaning friends, but the fight went out of him somewhere around the night he confessed to CJ.

With a rasping buzz the gates slide open, and a burly guard steps forward to escort Toby inside. He hears the gunning of the Toyota's engine, signaling Andy's departure, and he tries not to start writing the first of too many letters to her in his head. Thank God paper is for wimps.

This is his life for the next five years, he is forced to admit at last. Another generation of the Zieglers doing time; Julie will be so proud. It seems that Toby hasn't escaped his heritage at all, he'd only delayed it.

He surrenders his possessions one at a time, though he hasn't brought much. The clerk doesn't meet Toby's eye, and it's no more impersonal than the security checks at Dulles. He forgot to look for photographers, but there'll be something in tomorrow's paper regardless. Rubbing his forehead, Toby wonders again how it came to this.

The truth is, he still doesn't know.


End file.
